All Things Considered

The next time you pick up some California-grown carrots or melons in the grocery store, consider the curious, contested odyssey of the water that fed them. Chances are, farmers pumped that water from underground aquifers on a scale that's become unsustainable, especially as the planet heats up.

Facing an ongoing drought that is squeezing surface water supplies, farmers are extracting groundwater at higher rates to continue growing food as usual.

Say WeWork and one person comes to mind: Adam Neumann, the lanky founder and former CEO with flowing black hair and a rock-star persona who would carry on about the "energy" of the company's communal work spaces.

He also embraced a "party-boy life style," said Eliot Brown, whose new book with co-author Maureen Farrell, The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion, was published on Tuesday.

Well before noon, Neumann was known to offer potential investors shots of tequila from a bottle he kept behind his desk.

In a first since President Biden took office, the Biden administration has transferred a detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Morocco, signaling a renewed effort to shrink the highly controversial prison's population — and possibly close it entirely.

Soccer player Megan Rapinoe, swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles are among the 11,000 athletes competing in the Tokyo Olympics beginning this week on July 23.

More than 600 athletes from across the U.S. are headed to Japan to represent Team USA, and they'll have to navigate the twists and turns of this year's unusual Olympic Games.

After a dizzying rally this year, stock markets were hit hard on Monday as a spike in coronavirus infections around the world reinforced the reality of living with a pandemic that refuses to go away.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 725 points, or 2.1%, and had its worst day since October, while the S&P 500 fell 1.6%.

The losses mark a rare day of declines for a market that was at record highs as early as last week.

Here are three key things to know about the market's fall.

Texas already has some of the strictest voting laws in the country, and the state's Republicans are trying to make them even tougher. Most of the state's Democratic lawmakers have flown to Washington, D.C., to prevent a vote on legislation they call voter suppression.

In 1931, modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn purchased a farm in an isolated location in Western Massachusetts, as a retreat for his company. And over the years, Jacob's Pillow grew into one of the most important incubators of contemporary dance, not just for America, but for the world.

"This festival has never been canceled ever in its history," says director Pamela Tatge, "not even in World War II."

Scripps National Spelling Bee winner Zaila Avant-garde has been busy since her victory on July 8.

Already, the 14-year-old eighth-grader has been celebrated by the likes of Barack and Michelle Obama, LeBron James and Bill Murray. She has made rounds on morning talk shows and on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Rodrigo Amarante is full of bird facts.

When we meet him at his home, sitting out on his wooden deck that overlooks northeast LA, his doors and windows are all open, sunshine cascading through them. Amarante sits cross-legged underneath a patio umbrella that he's fashioned wheels on so that it can move easily with the sun. Despite making shade, he wears round, turtle-shell sunglasses as he fiddles with a bottle-top, pondering what inspired the genesis of his second solo album.

The $3.5 trillion budget blueprint Democrats agreed to this week includes a key part of President Biden's climate plan: a national "clean energy standard." It's aimed toward zeroing out greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2035.